


Did I talk about Nini the Whole Time?

by NiniAtTheYAC



Category: High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Jealousy, Love, Romance, Sleepovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:13:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22875325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NiniAtTheYAC/pseuds/NiniAtTheYAC
Summary: A prompt from Twitter -- Ricky is paired for a science project with one of the girls who he "talked to" over the summer, but Nini trusts him, so all she can do to try to convince herself to not be jealous.
Relationships: Ricky Bowen & Nini Salazar-Roberts, Ricky Bowen/Nini Salazar-Roberts
Comments: 6
Kudos: 120





	Did I talk about Nini the Whole Time?

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry for this title, and for any errors in this work, it's 1 am and I have to be up at 7 tomorrow, but I wanted to get this up tonight. Anyway, everybody can thank @nini_ricky over on Twitter for this one, and while you're there you can follow me @NiniAtTheYAC

After the last bell rang on Friday Nini stood with her back resting against her locker watching her boyfriend talking with Jade Cline and trying not to seeth. She was struck by the thought that this was the worst thing about living in one place your whole life. Knowing all of everyone’s history.

In eighth grade, Jade had asked Nini about Ricky. Asked Nini to ask Ricky out for her. Asked Nini what his favorite color was so that she could wear it more often. Asked Nini what his favorite candy was so she could give it to him on Valentine’s Day. In Freshman year Jade had asked Ricky to homecoming and he had said yes. He took Jade instead of going with Nini ‘as friends’ and Nini spent the whole night completely miserable. That was also the night when Big Red asked her why she was so upset, and Nini realized she could no longer ignore or deny the feelings she had for Ricky. 

Since then Nini always kind of worried and wondered if Ricky had ever liked Jade back or, she hated to even consider it if he’d ever kissed her. Then, when they had broken up over the summer, Jade had posted a few photos on Instagram with him and Nini pretty much took that as confirmation of all of her biggest fears. They looked annoyingly good together. Jade with her platinum hair and sparkly green eyes, and Ricky with his curls and that infectious smile. It was enough to make Nini’s stomach hurt. She still remembered the tearful phone call with Kourtney that night from camp. Kourt had offered to go shake details out of Big Red, egg Jade’s house, and have a serious ‘talk’ with Ricky. A full Hurricane Kourtney, as she would call it. 

She had turned down Kourt’s offers and instead tried to cope with the fact that what Ricky did was none of her business anymore. But things were different now. They were back together and while she knew that what he did was her business, she didn’t know how to get the details out of him without coming across like she was accusing him. 

Her eyes widened further when she watched Ricky take Jade’s phone and, presumably, put his phone number in it. “Oh that’s no good,” a familiar voice startled Nini out of her staring. Turning her head she saw Kourtney, who had made the comment, but also Gina and Ashlyn beside her. 

The three girls turned to look back at her, “I mean I’m sure it’s nothing, right?” Nini said. The girls looked hesitantly optimistic about the situation. 

“Well I’m sure that whatever it is Ricky will tell you about it, especially if you ask,” Ashlyn said. Gina and Kourtney nodded in agreeance with her. And before Nini could tell them anything about her fears, Ricky was by her side. He slung his arm over her shoulder, planting a chaste kiss on her cheek. “Hey, girls, what’s up?” He sounded so happy and content that Nini didn’t want to jeopardize that with her own insecurity. 

“Oh,” she said. “Not much, we were just discussing some plans for this weekend. After movie night at Carlos’s we’re spending the night at Ashlyn’s.” 

Ricky beamed at them all, “Nice! Sounds fun.” 

Kourtney, never one to let Nini’s passive nature get the better of her, took the situation into her own hands. “So, Bowen, you and Jade? What was up with that?” 

Ricky paled a little bit at her accusing tone. “Um,” he said. “She and I are paired up for a project in science, and she got a new phone so she needed my number so we can talk about it and find time to work on it.”

Nini felt some of the tension in her chest unwind at his perfectly reasonable explanation for the exchange that they’d seen, but the other girls, mostly Kourtney seemed unimpressed. “So…” Gina said, contemplating, “She had your number. She got a new phone and that’s why she needed your phone number again. As in a second time. Because you’ve given it to her before.” As much as Nini hated how uncomfortable Ricky looked, she loved Gina for cutting right through the problem and pointing out that unfortunate detail.

“We’ve been in school together since, like, second grade,” Ricky scoffed. “I have the number of like half of our grade. So, yeah.” 

“Got it,” Ash said, still looking somewhat skeptical. Nini didn’t want the girls to push it. She certainly wasn’t going to, but she and Ricky both knew that, while he was telling the truth, the full story with this particular classmate was a little more complicated. 

Nini shifted to catch Ricky’s eye. “Ignore them,” she said. “They’re just being protective. I trust you.” Ricky gave her an appreciative smile. 

“Yeah which is all the more reason for me to be keeping my eye on him,” Kourt interjected, but this time there was no malice in her voice and Ricky laughed with her. 

“I’d expect nothing less,” he quipped back and the group started to make their way down the hall to head home, ready for a couple of days away from EHS. 

\---

Late that night, the girls were all tucked in around Ashlyn’s living room. Nini was sleeping on the floor, buried in blankets, on an air mattress. Kourtney and Ash were sharing the couch, and Gina was bundled up in the lounge chair. The lights were off and their movie was long over, but none of them were ready to sleep just yet. Gina was telling a story about a time as a kid when she had rescued a dog in their backyard and tried to hide it in her room so that she could keep it. 

“Wait!” Ashlyn said, “Aren’t you, like, crazy allergic to dogs?”

Gina laughed, “Why, yes. Yes, I am.” The girls collectively burst into laughter at Gina’s response. “So my mom gets home from work and my face, nose, eyes, everything is running like a faucet! And I’m sneezing and my eyes are swelling. My mom-” Gina cuts off with laughter, gasping for air with tears in her eyes. After a moment of struggling she continued her story, “My mom was immediately freaking out and I’m trying to act natural as if my face is not a waterfall of snot and tears, and she’s about five seconds from calling an ambulance when the dog starts barking up in my room! I’ve honestly never seen my mom so mad, but looking back, I just- I just want to know what my long game was. Like, what was the plan? How did I think I was going to keep that up? Food? Leash? Literally everything?” All of the girls rolled with laughter as Gina continued to point out the huge holes in her younger self’s plans in her dog escapades. 

“Gi,” Nini said. “You’re crazy. Oh my god, I love you.” All of the girls were still smiling and recovering from their laughter but Nini saw an odd look on Gina’s face. “What?” Nini asked.

There was a pause before Gina spoke, “I’ve just never really had anything like this before,” she said. “Girls to hang out with and nicknames and sleepovers.” Nini’s heart swelled, she was so glad that she and Gina had patched things between them so that they could be close now. 

“Get over here!” Nini said with affection, crawling out of her nest of blankets to pull Gina onto the floor for a hug. “Oh,” Gina said. “No, Nini, I’m not much of a hugger.” Nini ignored her protests, she could tell when Gina was just putting up a front, and this was definitely one of those times. 

“Really, Gi, we’re so happy to have you here,” Kourt said from the couch. She smiled warmly at their friend. 

“I just feel like I’m so behind. It seems like everyone at EHS has known each other their whole lives,” Gina said. Nini let her go and Gina slowly scooted away, but she stayed on the floor next to Nini. “Speaking of,” she continued, “what was that whole thing at the end of the day in the hall? That greek goddess looking girl who was talking to Ricky? I’m pretty sure we all saw actual daggers in your eyes.”

“Yes!” Ash chimed in, “I’m also behind on this. Why do we hate Jade?” 

“We don’t.” Nini said while at the same time Kourtney said, “Because she’s been trying to get with Ricky for years with varying success.” They both gave each other accusatory looks. “Nini,” Kourtney said, “in this house, we live our truth. We hate Jade. You hate Jade. She’s a snake.”

Nini cringed, “But what about women supporting women and female solidarity?” 

“That only counts if she’s playing by the same rules,” Ash said. 

“What she said,” Gina agreed. Nini appreciated their support, but she didn’t want to write someone off just because of her own insecurity, besides “Jade can do whatever she wants. I trust Ricky,” she said. 

“Well that’s sweet and all, but we still don’t really know what happened with them over the summer,” Kourtney pointed out. Nini flinched, and she felt Gina grab her hand sympathetically. Nini squeezed her hand back. 

“I know Kourt,” she said softly. “Look, things with Ricky are really _really_ good right now. I’ve never been so happy and the last thing I want to do is let my own jealousy ruin that.”

“Have you considered talking to him about it?” Ashlyn suggested. “Not accusing him, just talk. You might feel better if you know the full story.”

“Or I might feel worse,” Nini said. “What if he, like, kissed her over the summer or something? When school started back up he tried to say that we had only been on a ‘break’ in his mind, so if he kissed her that would mean that he kind of cheated on me, and I think I’d rather not know about that, honestly.” 

“Well,” Gina spoke for the other girls after a moment. “We’ll all be on your side no matter what, but just consider this. Whether you know about it or not doesn’t change the truth. If he cheated he cheated.”

“But it would also be a very roundabout, sort of, kind of cheating,” Kourtney added. Nini knew that even though Kourt often gave Ricky a hard time she really did care about him. She knew that Kourt was hoping for the best and hoping that they wouldn’t have to go through all of Nini’s heartache… _again_. 

Nini changed the topic to grilling Ash about Big Red, which made her blush till she was about as red as her hair. Soon, the girls started to fall off asleep until Nini was the last one awake. In her bundle of blankets on her air mattress, she checked her phone one last time. She smiled when she saw a text from Ricky: ‘Hope my favorite girl is having a great night with all of her favorite girls. Night, love.’

She smiled and felt just the littlest bit better seeing how much she was on his mind even when they weren’t together. 

\---

By the time Monday rolled back around, Nini had made up her mind firmly to not be the ‘jealous girlfriend stereotype’ and as the week wore on she felt that she was doing a pretty good job of it. On Monday and Tuesday, she reigned in all of her anxiety and protests when Ricky said he was taking his lunch to the library to work with Jade on their project ideas. On Wednesday, when Ricky asked to reschedule their study date so that he could stay late working with Jade at school, Nini tried not to bat an eye. On Thursday evening, she was wearing thin, but she waited patiently at the public library when he was running late and when he finally arrived and continued to text with her, Nini held her tongue. In her head, she made up perfectly reasonable excuses for him to still be talking to Jade after having spent hours working together. 

On the phone that night she held back tears while she vented about it all to Seb, who kept saying “Oh, Honey” at every painful detail. “I don’t want him to think I don’t trust him. I don’t want to be jealous, but why did it have to be her?” Nini said. 

“And what reason could he possibly have for texting her that much for a science project? Ricky’s a good student, but he’s not that good,” Seb added. 

“Right?!” She shouted.

Then Friday happened. 

\---

The whole gang was in the cafeteria with their bags ready to head out to go bowling. At the movie night last week, Carlos and EJ had gotten into a debate over which one of them was better at bowling, and that debate had been carrying on all week until yesterday when Red finally suggested they all go together so that they can answer the question of who was superior once and for all. 

The group was carpooling to the bowling alley and they were all anxious to head out, but they were held up by one missing member. Ricky. Nini had been so relieved that morning when he told her to wish him good luck presenting his science project today, she had never been so excited for someone else to complete their school work. He had science last period, so Nini figured maybe he was just wrapping up some loose ends with the project and that was holding him up. She told the group as much and saw the unimpressed glances from Seb and the girls. 

They were all getting restless, Carlos and EJ most of all. They were both so obnoxiously competitive. Just as Nini was about to go looking for him, she finally spotted Ricky coming around the corner. He was taking his time, talking animatedly with Jade while she giggled and twirled a lock of her hair around her finger. It was all so cliche Nini could almost gag. 

Ricky didn’t seem to notice the group while walking up the hall, at the doors he paused with Jade smiling, he held up his hand to high-five her, but instead Jade hugged him. He quickly hugged her back, but as he let go, Jade, surged forward to place a lingering and flirtatious kiss on his cheek. Nini heard the collective gasp of all of their friends who had also just witnessed it. Even from a distance, Nini could see that Ricky was stiff and blushing. He looked uncomfortable, but he certainly didn’t seem angry. He didn’t push her away. She didn’t see or hear anything that looked like him reminding Jade that he was in a relationship. 

Nini’s stomach contracted even more than before, she really thought she might throw up now. But she didn’t, instead, she just felt tears filling her eyes. She felt the gentle hand of a friend come to rest on her shoulder. She felt the room spin and time slow. Through her tears, she watched Jade walk away and Ricky turn around and somehow it was even worse to see his face. She could hear the girls grumbling behind her and already Red was coming to Ricky’s defense. Ricky must have known how the exchange looked, seen the faces of Nini and their friends, and realized his mistake. He took off to run down the steps into the cafeteria. 

“Nini!” He called out, “Hey I know that looked bad but really it was nothing. You know I don’t care about Jade.” Nini didn’t want to do this. Not here. Not now. Definitely not infront of everyone. She backed away from Ricky as he drew closer until finally, she turned around to run out the glass doors of the cafeteria. 

Once she made it outside Nini realized there was nowhere for her to really go, she just ran around the side of the building, out of sight and let herself fall back against the brick wall. Looking up she noted that it was an appropriately cloudy and dreary day. Nini sighed in frustration as she felt tears slip from her eyes. She didn’t really understand why she was so upset. She had watched everything transpire. She knew who initiated it, how he reacted, how he looked when it happened. He clearly hadn’t expected it from her, but somehow none of those facts could outweigh the feeling of heavy, painful, dread growing in her chest. 

She heard the cafeteria door bang open. “Nini!” Ricky called out. His footsteps drew closer to her and Nini willed herself to stop crying and stay calm. Ricky came around the corner and she saw the hurt in his eyes. It almost made her angry, why should he get to look hurt? She was the one who was hurt, he was supposed to be sorry. “Neens, I know it looked kind of bad, but you saw, it was her not me and I didn’t know that she was gonna do that and I-”

“Did you ever kiss her?” Nini cut him off with her question even though she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer. She could barely look at him and she knew the truth before he spoke it just from the pleading look in his eyes. 

“Neens,” his voice was paper thin. 

“Just answer me, Ricky,” she said sternly.

“It was years ago. Homecoming. Freshman year. And it was a huge mistake because I loved you even then and I wished that it had been you, which is why I never told you about it.” Ricky sounded so defeated.

“What about this summer?” Nini asked. 

He winced, “We didn’t kiss, but we did kind of go out. But all I could talk about or think about the whole time was you. I knew it wasn’t fair of me to get her involved, but I missed you so much and I was just so dumb.”

Nini felt like a breeze could knock her over, “Was there anyone else that I should know about? This summer?” 

“There were two other girls, but I never kissed or did anything with any of them. We just talked and hung out a couple of times,” Ricky said. His gaze was so intense and earnest. 

Nini took a slow breath. “Okay,” she said.

“Okay?” 

“Yeah. I mean, I understand and I believe you. I hate it, but you didn’t really do anything wrong and I needed to know the truth even though I hate it,” she looked at him and could feel nothing but defeat. “I hate feeling jealous. I hate that she’s so pretty in ways that I’m not. She’s pretty in ways that I’ve never been and never will be. And I hate that Jade makes me so angry and possessive. It's like I just want to handcuff you to me so that she can’t be around you without seeing me too. I don’t want you to think I don’t trust you, because I do! But I don’t trust her, and I don’t know how you could possibly pick me over her.”

Slowly, Ricky brought his hand up to Nini’s cheek. He wiped away the tears that had stained her face and she leaned into his touch. “Nini, there’s a difference between jealousy and insecurity. You have a right to feel anything that you feel, but I need you to believe me when I tell you that there’s no need for you to be insecure around her. I love you so much, Neens. Jade is like- she’s a lightbulb, and you are the whole freaking sun. There’s just no competition,” he spoke with a gentle affection that healed Nini’s heart in a way that she didn’t even know she needed. 

Nini's arms wrapped around his neck as she stretched up on her toes to kiss him. He melted against her, arms shifting around her to pull her tight against him. Nini felt safe in Ricky’s arms. She felt loved and cherished and she like maybe she could see what he meant just a little bit -- She felt like a glowing sun when she was with him.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry that ending is so cheesy I kind of hate it, but let me know what you think! If you have any requests for other one-shots leave them in the comments and I'd be happy to take a look at them, and if you haven't read my fic "My Heart is Wherever You Are", I'd love for you to check it out. It's my baby, and I just want everybody to love and read it. (Also, this fic ended up lowkey saying gini and elos rights??? Wasn't really part of the plan but here we are)


End file.
